Toshiba mobile TV subsidiary Mobile Broadcasting Corporation is shutting down, after failing to attract enough interest, the company said Thursday. “The number of subscribers has not reached a sufficient level to sustain operations and, following a thorough review of operations, the company has decided to cease broadcasting,” it said in a statement. MBC’s digital satellite mobile TV service Moba-Ho! began broadcasting in October 2004, and had some 40 channels of audio, video and data information programming. The service will shut down at the end of March 2009, with Toshiba expected to take a 25 billion yen ($232 million) hit on MBC’s closure.

So what happened to MBC’s Moba-Ho? The likely story is that Japan’s other mobile TV technology, the very popular digital terrestrial mobile TV service One-seg helped kill it off. In an interview in 2005, Mobile Broadcasting Co. President Tetsuya Mizoguchi said that he wasn’t concerned with terrestrial digital mobile TV, since the focus was different. One-seg offers local broadcasts for free, while Moba-Ho! had its own special line up of content. But One-Seg has proven very popular—especially after handset manufacturers began building recording functions into phones that allowed Japanese consumers to record and watch programs whenever they wanted. In February, One-Seg hit the 20 million-handset mark less than two years after its launch.

This week hasn’t been the best for mobile TV services—at least paying ones. MBC’s news follows just days after German press reports that the country’s DVB-H mobile TV service Mobile 3.0 is on the verge of shutting down. German operators after losing out on the DVB-H license to Mobile 3.0 have brought the service it seems to a halt, after deciding to support a competing technology—the “free” DVB-T, or digital terrestrial mobile TV technology. (Release).

• Operators Kill DVB-H In Germany
• Shipments of Japan’s Mobile TV Enabled Handsets Hit 20 Million